- Bertrand Russell, Rudolf Carnap, Henri Bergson, Edmund Husserl, Gottlob Frege, Martin Heidegger, and 40 morePhenomenology, Georges Bataille, A. J. Ayer, Metaphysics, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, History of Analytic Philosophy, Gilbert Ryle, Jean Wahl, Nonsense, J. L. Austin, Jacques Derrida, John R. Searle, Metaphilosophy, Philosophy of Architecture, Neo-Kantianism, Continental Philosophy, Analytic Philosophy, Continental (vs.) Analytical Philosophy, Modernism, Stoicism, Presocratic Philosophy, 20th Century Philosophy, Ernst Cassirer, History of Philosophy, Epistemology of Disagreement, Metametaphysics, Metaontology, History of Aesthetics, Aesthetics, Analytic Continental Philosophy, Connections between analytic and continental philosophy, The Analytic/Continental Divide, Analytic Continental Philosophy Explaining Differences, Potential synergies between analytic and continental philosophy, Continental, Analytic, Analytic-Continental Divide, Analytic and Continental Philosophy, The History of Modern Logic and the Origins of the Continental/Analytic Divide, Analytic/continental Divide, and Hans Corneliusedit
- I am an Assistant Professor at the Department of Classics and Philosophy at the University of Cyprus. My research foc... moreI am an Assistant Professor at the Department of Classics and Philosophy at the University of Cyprus. My research focuses on the History of Analytic Philosophy and its different relations to the broader context of the History of Philosophy in the Twentieth Century (including the various traditions sometimes bundled under the heading of 'Continental' Philosophy, e.g. Phenomenology or Critical Theory). A number of my publications explore the purported divide between Analytic and Continental Philosophy, including the monograph titled Encounters between Analytic and Continental Philosophy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and the forthcoming monograph Bergsonism and the History of Analytic Philosophy (to be published in Palgrave Macmillan's History of Analytic Philosophy series). I am also interested in, and write about, Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art.
I received my PhD in Philosophy from Birkbeck, University of London in 2011, after which I held an Honourary Fellowship at Birkbeck between 2011-2012. Since 2010 I have taught at the University of Cyprus, as well as the Cyprus University of Technology and the European University of Cyprus.edit
During the first quarter of the twentieth century, the French philosopher Henri Bergson became an international celebrity, profoundly influencing contemporary intellectual and artistic currents. While Bergsonism was fashionable, L. Susan... more
During the first quarter of the twentieth century, the French philosopher Henri Bergson became an international celebrity, profoundly influencing contemporary intellectual and artistic currents. While Bergsonism was fashionable, L. Susan Stebbing, Bertrand Russell, Moritz Schlick, and Rudolf Carnap launched different critical attacks against some of Bergson’s views. This book examines this series of critical responses to Bergsonism early in the history of analytic philosophy. Analytic criticisms of Bergsonism were influenced by William James, who saw Bergson as an ‘anti-intellectualist’ ally of American Pragmatism, and Max Scheler, who saw him as a prophet of Lebensphilosophie. Some of the main analytic objections to Bergson are answered in the work of Karin Costelloe-Stephen. Analytic anti-Bergsonism accompanied the earlier refutations of idealism by Russell and Moore, and later influenced the Vienna Circle’s critique of metaphysics. It eventually contributed to the formation of the view that ‘analytic’ philosophy is divided from its ‘continental’ counterpart.
Research Interests: Metaphilosophy, History of Analytic Philosophy, Max Scheler, History of Philosophy of Science, William James, and 14 moreIntuition, Henri Bergson, Vienna Circle, Bertrand Russell, Logical Empiricism, Rudolf Carnap, Continental (vs.) Analytical Philosophy, American Pragmatism, History of Women in Philosophy, Lebensphilosophie, Moritz Schlick, History of Philosophy of Science (Especially Pragmatism and Logical Empiricism), susan stebbing, and Karin Costelloe-Stephen
Twentieth-century philosophy has often been pictured as divided into two camps, analytic and continental. This study challenges this depiction by examining encounters between some of the leading representatives of either side. Starting... more
Twentieth-century philosophy has often been pictured as divided into two camps, analytic and continental. This study challenges this depiction by examining encounters between some of the leading representatives of either side. Starting with Husserl and Frege's fin-de-siècle turn against psychologism, it turns to Carnap's 1931 attack on Heidegger's metaphysics (together with its background in the Cassirer-Heidegger dispute of 1929), moving on to Ayer's 1951 meeting with Bataille and Merleau-Ponty at a Parisian bar, followed by the 'dialogue of the deaf' between Oxford linguistic philosophers and phenomenologists at the 1951 Royaumont colloquium, leading up to the Derrida-Searle controversy. Careful study shows that it is implausible to assume the existence of a century-old 'gulf' between two sides of philosophy. Vrahimis argues that miscommunication and ignorance over the exact content of the above encounters must to a large extent be held accountable for any perceived gap.
Research Interests: Critical Theory, Intellectual History, Cultural Studies, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Language, and 48 moreAnalytic Philosophy, Metaphilosophy, History of Analytic Philosophy, Comparative Philosophy, History of Ideas, Sociology of Knowledge, Nonsense, Theories of Meaning, Deconstruction, Phenomenology, Jurgen Habermas, Continental Philosophy, Cultural Politics, Contemporary French Philosophy, Gilles Deleuze, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jacques Lacan, Émmanuel Lévinas, Jean Wahl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, 20th Century Philosophy, Jacques Derrida, Georges Bataille, Vienna Circle, Ernst Cassirer, John R. Searle, Continental (vs.) Analytical Philosophy, Gottlob Frege, Kant & neo-Kantianism, Ordinary Language Philosophy, Gilbert Ryle, Existentialism, History of Early Analytic Philosophy, Connections between analytic and continental philosophy, Analytic-Continental Divide, Analytic/continental Divide, Potential synergies between analytic and continental philosophy, Continental, Analytic, History of Philosophy, Analytic Continental Philosophy, Analytical and Continental Philosophy, Analytic Continental Philosophy Explaining Differences, The Analytic/Continental Divide, Analytic and Continental Philosophy, The History of Modern Logic and the Origins of the Continental/Analytic Divide, and analytics and continentals
Comparative to the commonplace focus onto developments in mathematics and physics, the life sciences appear to have received relatively sparse attention within the early history of analytic philosophy. This paper addresses two related... more
Comparative to the commonplace focus onto developments in mathematics and physics, the life sciences appear to have received relatively sparse attention within the early history of analytic philosophy. This paper addresses two related aspects of this phenomenon. On the one hand, it asks: to the extent that the significance of the life sciences was indeed downplayed by early analytic philosophers, why was this the case? An answer to this question may be found in Bertrand Russell’s 1914 discussions of the relation between biology and philosophy. Contrary to received views of the history of analytic philosophy, Russell presented his own ‘logical atomism’ in opposition not only to British Idealism, but also to ‘evolutionism’. On the other hand, I will question whether this purported neglect of the life sciences does indeed accurately characterise the history of analytic philosophy. In answering this, I turn first to Susan Stebbing’s criticisms of Russell’s overlooking of biology, her influence on J.H. Woodger, and her critical discussion of T.H. Huxley’s and C.H. Waddington’s application of evolutionary views to philosophical questions. I then discuss the case of Moritz Schlick, whose evolutionist philosophy has been overlooked within recent debates concerning Logical Empiricism’s relation to the philosophy of biology.
Research Interests:
Maria Rosa Antognazza's work has issued a historical challenge to the thesis that the analysis of knowledge (as justified true belief) attacked by epistemologists from Gettier onwards was indeed the standard view traditionally upheld... more
Maria Rosa Antognazza's work has issued a historical challenge to the thesis that the analysis of knowledge (as justified true belief) attacked by epistemologists from Gettier onwards was indeed the standard view traditionally upheld from Plato onwards. This challenge led to an ongoing reappraisal of the historical significance of intuitive knowledge, in which the knower is intimately connected to what is known. Such traditional accounts of intuition, and their accompanying claims to epistemological primacy, constituted the precise target of Moritz Schlick's critique. Schlick engages with this topic throughout his oeuvre, from some of his early epistemological writings, to his anti-metaphysical stance as a leading Logical Empiricist. Schlick crucially distinguishes knowledge from mere acquaintance, denying that the latter has epistemic status. He therefore argues that the very notion of ‘intuitive knowledge’ is a contradictio in adjecto.
Research Interests:
The early Schlick developed an evolutionary biological account of play. He contrasted play with work. Where work encompasses all activity that is undertaken for the sake of some practical outcome, play renders what was previously a mere... more
The early Schlick developed an evolutionary biological account of play. He contrasted play with work. Where work encompasses all activity that is undertaken for the sake of some practical outcome, play renders what was previously a mere means into an end enjoyable in itself. Schlick thus distinguished between aesthetic, religious, scientific, and ethical game types. This paper shows that this typology underlies his later attempts to naturalize these fields, and allows us to clarify the relation between object-games and their description within the scientific game. Schlick's demarcation between aesthetic and scientific games arguably prefigures the Vienna Circle's anti-metaphysical stance.
Research Interests:
In a move characteristic of appropriationist approaches to the history of philosophy, Katzav (Asian Journal of Philosophy 2(47):1–26, Katzav, 2023a) argues that Grace Andrus de Laguna had, already in 1909, developed what is effectively a... more
In a move characteristic of appropriationist approaches to the history of philosophy, Katzav (Asian Journal of Philosophy 2(47):1–26, Katzav, 2023a) argues that Grace Andrus de Laguna had, already in 1909, developed what is effectively a critique of analytic philosophy (as a form of epistemically conservative philosophy). In response to Katzav’s claim, this symposium paper attempts to pay closer attention to the context of de Laguna’s paper. As Katzav also acknowledges, de Laguna was dialogically engaged with two non-analytic tendencies in her contemporary philosophy, namely pragmatism and absolute idealism. More specifically, her target is Dewey’s, 1905 defence of ‘immediatism’ (and, by extension, James’ ‘radical empiricism’), which was put forward in opposition to absolute idealism. In 1909, de Laguna separates ‘immediatism’ from ‘instrumentalism’ as two distinct tendencies within pragmatism, rejecting the former and embracing the latter. By thus situating her critique, I argue that, while successful against Deweyan non-analytic ‘immediatism’ (and possibly also James’s Bergsonist variant of this view), it cannot, without further ado, be charitably interpreted as applicable against Russell’s analytic theory of sense-data.
Research Interests:
In conversations with Schlick and Waismann from June to December 1930, Wittgenstein began to turn his attention to the topic of games. This topic also centrally concerned Schlick. In his earliest philosophical output, Schlick had relied... more
In conversations with Schlick and Waismann from June to December 1930, Wittgenstein began to turn his attention to the topic of games. This topic also centrally concerned Schlick. In his earliest philosophical output, Schlick had relied on the results of evolutionary biology in setting out an account of the emergence of the human species' ability to play [Spiel] as a prerequisite for the genesis of scientific knowledge. Throughout his subsequent works, one finds fragmentary appeals to this early view, for example in his oft-misunderstood claim that play constitutes the meaning of life. Wittgenstein's turn to the topic of games in 1930 not only happened while Professor Schlick was in the room but was also coupled with an explicit response to Schlick's 1930 book Fragen der Ethik. Schlick here employs the example of chess to distinguish between rules and their application—a distinction that underlies his whole attempt to naturalise ethics as a descriptive psycho-sociological discipline. This paper investigates the relation between Wittgenstein's and Schlick's accounts of games in the light of Wittgenstein's criticisms of Schlick's ethics. Wittgenstein's objections can be answered by taking Schlick's theory of play into consideration.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Is there a substantial difference between a portrait depicting the sitter’s face made by an artist and an image captured by a machine able to simulate the neuro-physiology of facial perception? Drawing on the later Wittgenstein, this... more
Is there a substantial difference between a portrait depicting the sitter’s face made by an artist and an image captured by a machine able to simulate the neuro-physiology of facial perception? Drawing on the later Wittgenstein, this paper answers this question by reference to the relation between seeing a visual pattern as (i) a series of shapes and colours, and (ii) a face with expressions. In the case of the artist, and not of the machine, the portrait’s creative process involves the ability to see both aspects. From the perspective of the image’s viewer, the distinction is more difficult to draw. I address this difficulty by further distinguishing between two attributes of portraits: their representational accuracy, and their ability to convey the artist’s reflection on her experience of seeing the sitter face-to-face. While artificial intelligence can mimic this latter reflective ability, it cannot exactly reproduce it.
Research Interests:
In his earliest philosophical work, Moritz Schlick developed a proposal for rendering aesthetics into a field of empirical science. His 1908 book Lebensweisheit developed an evolutionary account of the emergence of both scientific... more
In his earliest philosophical work, Moritz Schlick developed a proposal for rendering aesthetics into a field of empirical science. His 1908 book Lebensweisheit developed an evolutionary account of the emergence of both scientific knowledge and aesthetic feelings from play. This constitutes the framework of Schlick’s evolutionary psychological methodology for examining the origins of the aesthetic feeling of the beautiful he proposed in 1909. He defends his methodology by objecting to both experimental psychological and Darwinian reductionist accounts of aesthetics. Having countered these approaches, Schlick applies Külpe’s psychological distinction between stimulus-feelings and idea-feelings to collapse the traditional philosophical opposition between the agreeable and the beautiful. Both types of feeling, Schlick argues, result from humans’ adaptation to their environment. Because of this adaptation, feelings that were once only stimuli for action can come to be enjoyed for their own sake. This thesis underlies Schlick’s 1908 argument that art, qua mimesis, is necessarily inferior to aesthetic feelings directed towards the environment. Part of Schlick’s justification for this view is that humans are, through a long evolutionary process, better adapted to their environment than to artworks. Schlick nevertheless concedes that mimetic art can involve ways of abstracting from the objects it copies to produce idealised regularities that are not found in the original. Schlick thus concludes that art teaches its audience how to perceive the world in this abstract and idealised manner. This type of environmental aesthetics constitutes a means for reaching Schlick’s utopian ecological vision of a future in which culture will become harmonised with nature.
Research Interests:
Adolf Loos is one of the few figures that Wittgenstein explicitly named as an influence on his thought. Loos’s influence has been debated in the context of determining Wittgenstein’s relation to modernism, as well as in attempts to come... more
Adolf Loos is one of the few figures that Wittgenstein explicitly named as an influence on his thought. Loos’s influence has been debated in the context of determining Wittgenstein’s relation to modernism, as well as in attempts to come to terms with his work as an architect. This paper looks in a different direction, examining a remark in which Wittgenstein responded to Heidegger’s notorious pronouncement that ‘the Nothing noths’ by reference to Loos’s critique of ornamentation. Wittgenstein draws a parallel between the requirement to start philosophy with an inarticulate sound and the need, in certain cultural periods, to highlight the borders of tablecloths using lace. Paying heed to Wittgenstein’s remark sheds further light on a Loosian influence at work in his thinking about modern civilization, both in his well-known ‘Lectures on Aesthetics’ and in the earlier notes from his 1930 lectures at Cambridge.
Research Interests:
Carnap’s 1931 attack against metaphysics notoriously utilises Heidegger’s work to exemplify the meaninglessness of metaphysical pseudo‐statements. This paper interprets Carnap’s metametaphysics as concerned with delimiting theoretical... more
Carnap’s 1931 attack against metaphysics notoriously utilises Heidegger’s work to exemplify the meaninglessness of metaphysical pseudo‐statements. This paper interprets Carnap’s metametaphysics as concerned with delimiting theoretical dialogue in such a manner as to exclude unresolvable disagreements. It puts forth a revised version of Carnap’s argument against the viability of metaphysics, by setting aside his stronger claims that rely on verificationism and focusing instead on his account of metaphysical claims as mere expressions of what he calls “Lebensgefühl,” or a general attitude towards life. Such attitudes, Carnap argues, are unsuitable objects of theoretical dialogue, insofar as disagreements that concern them are unresolvable. Carnap thus recommends abandoning the attempt to resolve metaphysical disagreements as if they were theoretical. As long as it does not enter into unresolvable disagreements, art, rather than theory, is the appropriate medium for expressing Lebensgefühl.
Research Interests:
Friedrich Nietzsche was among the figures from the history of nineteenth century philosophy that, perhaps surprisingly, some of the Vienna Circle's members had presented as one of their predecessors. While, primarily for political... more
Friedrich Nietzsche was among the figures from the history of nineteenth century philosophy that, perhaps surprisingly, some of the Vienna Circle's members had presented as one of their predecessors. While, primarily for political reasons, most Anglophone figures in the history of analytic philosophy had taken a dim view of Nietzsche, the Vienna Circle's leader Moritz Schlick admired and praised Nietzsche, rejecting what he saw as a misinterpretation of Nietzsche as a militarist or proto-fascist. Schlick, Frank, Neurath, and Carnap were in different ways committed to the view that Nietzsche made a significant contribution to the overcoming of metaphysics. Some of these philosophers praised the intimate connection Nietzsche drew between his philosophical outlook and empirical studies in psychology and physiology. In his 1912 lectures on Nietzsche, Schlick maintained that Nietzsche overcame an initial Schopenhauerian metaphysical-artistic phase in his thinking, and subsequently remained a positivist until his last writings. Frank and Neurath made the weaker claim that Nietzsche contributed to the development of a positivistic or scientific conception of the world. Schlick and Frank took a further step in seeing the mature Nietzsche as an Enlightenment thinker.
Research Interests:
During the 1930s, while both movements were fleeing from persecution by the Nazis, the Vienna Circle and the Frankfurt School planned to collaborate. The plan failed, and in its stead Horkheimer published a critique of the Vienna Circle... more
During the 1930s, while both movements were fleeing from persecution by the Nazis, the Vienna Circle and the Frankfurt School planned to collaborate. The plan failed, and in its stead Horkheimer published a critique of the Vienna Circle in “The Latest Attack on Metaphysics” (written in collaboration with Adorno, though he is not credited as an author). This paper will analyse Horkheimer’s (and Adorno’s) article, and the ensuing dialogue with Neurath. The Frankfurt School’s critical stance towards the Vienna Circle can be traced back to Adorno’s earlier objections to the ‘positivist’ myth of the given. In response to Carnap’s attack on Heidegger, Horkheimer (and Adorno) criticized both metaphysics and its ‘scientistic’ overcoming. Their critique employs a number of overgeneralisations about ‘logical positivism’. Neurath’s unpublished reply proposes corrections to the Frankfurt School’s portrayal of ‘positivism’, pointing towards a partly conciliatory direction within the framework of Unified Science. The attempted collaboration between the Vienna Circle and the Frankfurt School ended when Horkheimer refused to publish Neurath's reply to his article in the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung. Horkheimer subsequently made anti-positivism a central concern for critical theory, setting the tone of subsequent polemics in the Positivismusstreit of the 1960s.
Research Interests:
The history of early analytic philosophy, and especially the work of the logical empiricists, has often been seen as involving antagonisms with rival schools. Though recent scholarship has interrogated the Vienna Circle’s relations with... more
The history of early analytic philosophy, and especially the work of the logical empiricists, has often been seen as involving antagonisms with rival schools. Though recent scholarship has interrogated the Vienna Circle’s relations with e.g. phenomenology and Neo-Kantianism, important works by some of its leading members are involved in responding to the rising tide of Lebensphilosophie. This paper will explore Carnap’s configuration of the relation between Lebensphilosophie and the overcoming of metaphysics, Schlick’s responses to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, and Neurath’s reaction against Spengler.
Research Interests:
Wittgenstein’s and Heidegger’s objections against the possibility of a science of aesthetics were influential on different sides of the analytic/continental divide. Heidegger’s anti-scientism leads him to an alētheic view of artworks... more
Wittgenstein’s and Heidegger’s objections against the possibility of a science of aesthetics were influential on different sides of the analytic/continental divide. Heidegger’s anti-scientism leads him to an alētheic view of artworks which precedes and exceeds any possible aesthetic reduction. Wittgenstein also rejects the relevance of causal explanations, psychological or physiological, to aesthetic questions. The main aim of this paper is to compare Heidegger with Wittgenstein, showing that: (a) there are significant parallels to be drawn between Wittgenstein’s and Heidegger’s anti-scientism about aesthetics, and that (b) their anti-scientism leads both towards partly divergent criticisms of what I will call ‘aestheticism’. The divergence is mainly due to a broader metaphilosophical disagreement concerning appeals to ordinary language. Thus situating the two philosophers’ positions facilitates a possible critical dialogue between analytic and continental approaches in aesthetics.
Research Interests:
Though scholarship has explored Karin Costelloe-Stephen’s contributions to the history of psychoanalysis, as well as her relations to the Bloomsbury Group, her philosophical work has been almost completely ignored. This paper will examine... more
Though scholarship has explored Karin Costelloe-Stephen’s contributions to the history of psychoanalysis, as well as her relations to the Bloomsbury Group, her philosophical work has been almost completely ignored. This paper will examine her debate with Bertrand Russell over his criticism of Bergson. Costelloe-Stephen had employed the terminology of early analytic philosophy in presenting a number of arguments in defence of Bergson’s views. Costelloe-Stephen would object, among other things, to Russell’s use of an experiment which, as she points out, was first conducted by Carl Stumpf. Russell appeals to Stumpf's experiment in his attempt to prove that sense data are terms in logical relations, a thesis presupposed by the project of logical analysis outlined in Our Knowledge of the External World. A reformulated version of Costelloe-Stephen's argument put forth by this paper shows that Russell's argument fails to provide adequate proof for his thesis. Further modifications of the argument can also address a reconstruction (based on contemporary reports) of Russell's reply to Costelloe-Stephen. In his reply, Russell would use, already in 1914, the term ‘analytic philosophy’ in contrasting his and Moore’s approach to a continental one, exemplified by Bergson and Costelloe-Stephen.
Research Interests:
Is there a relation between the purported ‘analytic’/‘continental’ divide and literary style? The two camps have been stereotypically depicted as disagreeing over the literary character of philosophy. This paper shows that the stereotype... more
Is there a relation between the purported ‘analytic’/‘continental’ divide and literary style? The two camps have been stereotypically depicted as disagreeing over the literary character of philosophy. This paper shows that the stereotype originated in a number of encounters between prominent representatives of either camp. These include Mill’s commentary on Bentham and Coleridge, Russell’s critique of Bergson, Carnap’s use of Heidegger’s sentences as examples of metaphysical nonsense, and Derrida’s controversy with Searle. The theme of philosophy’s proper relation to literature recurs in all these. Nonetheless, the ‘analytic’/’continental’ divide is not reducible to a disagreement about this topic.
Research Interests:
Wittgenstein and Heidegger’s objections against the possibility of an aesthetic science were influential on different sides of the analytic/continental divide. Heidegger’s anti-scientism is tied up with a critique of the reduction of the... more
Wittgenstein and Heidegger’s objections against the possibility of an aesthetic science were influential on different sides of the analytic/continental divide. Heidegger’s anti-scientism is tied up with a critique of the reduction of the work of art to an object of aesthetic experience. This leads him to an aletheic view of artworks which precedes and exceeds any possible aesthetic reduction. Wittgenstein too rejects the relevance of causal explanations, psychological or physiological, to aesthetic questions. His appeal to ordinary language provides the backdrop for his critique of the philosophical tradition’s focus on a narrow range of evaluative aesthetic terms, thus excluding most of the language we ordinarily employ in the relevant cases. The main aim of this paper is to compare Heidegger with Wittgenstein, showing that: (a) there are significant parallels to be drawn between Wittgenstein and Heidegger’s anti-scientism about aesthetics, and (b) their anti-scientism leads them towards partly divergent criticisms of what I will call ‘aestheticism’. The divergence is mainly due to a disagreement concerning appeals to ordinary language. Thus situating the two philosophers’ positions facilitates a possible critical dialogue between analytic and continental approaches in aesthetics.
Research Interests:
In ‘Brentano’s Methodology as a Path through the Divide’, Röck makes two related claims. Röck argues that there exists a philosophical dilemma between description and logical analysis, and that the current divide between continental... more
In ‘Brentano’s Methodology as a Path through the Divide’, Röck makes two related claims. Röck argues that there exists a philosophical dilemma between description and logical analysis, and that the current divide between continental phenomenology and analytic philosophy may be seen as a consequence of the dilemma. Röck further argues that Brentano’s work integrates description and logical analysis in a way which ‘can provide a suitable starting point for an equally successful integration of these methods in contemporary philosophy’. Without disputing Röck’s claim about the suitability of Brentano’s work for such an integration, this paper questions by examining the influence of Brentano and his school on early analytic philosophy. As recent scholarship in the history of analytic philosophy demonstrates, contrary to Röck’s contention, many prominent analytic philosophers conversed with Brentano and his school’s conceptions of phenomenological description.
Research Interests:
Roholt’s discussion of the methodological divide between analytic and continental philosophy of music is undertaken with the hope of bringing about the divide’s dissolution. Roholt limits the scope of the discussion to methodological... more
Roholt’s discussion of the methodological divide between analytic and continental philosophy of music is undertaken with the hope of bringing about the divide’s dissolution. Roholt limits the scope of the discussion to methodological debates in the philosophy of music, without referring to the ongoing debate about the divide at large. This begs the question of how methodological differences in the philosophy of music correlate with differences between analytic and continental philosophy. Upon closer inspection, there is nothing that is essentially analytic or continental about the opposed methodological preferences discussed by Roholt. This acknowledgement is in part what Roholt aimed at: it erects no strict communicative barrier between two methodologically opposed sides. There is however, as I point out, a further unresolved problem with Roholt’s talk of ‘tendencies’ (or the parallel metaphilosophical employment of family resemblances to understand the divide), which if unresolved may allow for a regression to stereotypical conceptions of the divide.
Research Interests:
Prior to the Great War, academic philosophy throughout Europe was arguably dominated by Idealist schools, with Neo-Kantianism prominent in France and Germany, and British Idealism still a leading force in the United Kingdom. The outburst... more
Prior to the Great War, academic philosophy throughout Europe was arguably dominated by Idealist schools, with Neo-Kantianism prominent in France and Germany, and British Idealism still a leading force in the United Kingdom. The outburst of the Great War, and the German army’s burning of the library of the University of Leuven in particular, gave rise to a reaction by intellectuals across various fields, including philosophy. Of particular interest here is the way that philosophers sought to contribute to the war effort, thereby ushering in an international controversy between some of the chief figures in Germanophone Neo-Kantianism and their French, British, and American critics: viz, the association of a particular philosophical character with specific national cultures. Germanophone Neo-Kantians, for example, sought justification for the war effort in the writings of their German Idealist intellectual ancestors, while figures such as Dewey and Boutroux, blamed Idealist philosophy for Prussian militarism. After surveying the debates over the association of Idealism with the war, this paper will examine how idealist schools faded from prominence in interwar European academia. I will argue that the association of German Idealism with the war contributed to the formation of the idea of a divide between analytic and continental philosophy.
Research Interests:
Monk’s ‘The Temptations of Phenomenology’ examines what the term ‘Phänomenologie’ meant for Wittgenstein. Contesting various other scholars, Monk claims that Wittgenstein’s relation to ‘Phänomenologie’ began and ended during 1929. Monk... more
Monk’s ‘The Temptations of Phenomenology’ examines what the term ‘Phänomenologie’ meant for Wittgenstein. Contesting various other scholars, Monk claims that Wittgenstein’s relation to ‘Phänomenologie’ began and ended during 1929. Monk only partially touches on the question of Wittgenstein’s relation to the phenomenological movement during this time. Though Monk does not mention this, 1929 was also the year in which Ryle and Carnap turned their critical attention toward Heidegger. Wittgenstein also expressed his sympathy for Heidegger in 1929. Furthermore, though in 1929 Wittgenstein agrees with the early Husserl on relating logic and science to phenomenology, it is not clear that they mean the same thing by either logic or phenomenology, or that they agree on what the relation between the two should be.
Research Interests:
"" In contrast to many of his contemporaries, A. J. Ayer was an analytic philosopher who had sustained throughout his career some interest in developments in the work of his ‘continental’ peers. Ayer, who spoke French, held friendships... more
""
In contrast to many of his contemporaries, A. J. Ayer was an analytic philosopher who had sustained throughout his career some interest in developments in the work of his ‘continental’ peers. Ayer, who spoke French, held friendships with some important Parisian intellectuals, such as Camus, Bataille, Wahl and Merleau-Ponty. This paper examines the circumstances of a meeting between Ayer, Merleau-Ponty, Wahl, Ambrosino and Bataille, which took place in 1951 at some Parisian bar. The question under discussion during this meeting was whether the sun existed before humans did, over which the various philosophers disagreed. This disagreement is tangled with a variety of issues, such as Ayer’s critique of Heidegger and Sartre (inherited from Carnap), Ayer’s response to Merleau-Ponty’s critique of empiricism, and Bataille’s response to Sartre’s critique of his notion of ‘unknowing’, which uncannily resembles Ayer’s critique of Sartre. Amidst this tangle one finds Bataille’s statement that an ‘abyss’ separates English from French and German philosophy, the first recorded announcement of the analytic-continental divide in the twentieth century.""
In contrast to many of his contemporaries, A. J. Ayer was an analytic philosopher who had sustained throughout his career some interest in developments in the work of his ‘continental’ peers. Ayer, who spoke French, held friendships with some important Parisian intellectuals, such as Camus, Bataille, Wahl and Merleau-Ponty. This paper examines the circumstances of a meeting between Ayer, Merleau-Ponty, Wahl, Ambrosino and Bataille, which took place in 1951 at some Parisian bar. The question under discussion during this meeting was whether the sun existed before humans did, over which the various philosophers disagreed. This disagreement is tangled with a variety of issues, such as Ayer’s critique of Heidegger and Sartre (inherited from Carnap), Ayer’s response to Merleau-Ponty’s critique of empiricism, and Bataille’s response to Sartre’s critique of his notion of ‘unknowing’, which uncannily resembles Ayer’s critique of Sartre. Amidst this tangle one finds Bataille’s statement that an ‘abyss’ separates English from French and German philosophy, the first recorded announcement of the analytic-continental divide in the twentieth century.""
Research Interests: Intellectual History, Analytic Philosophy, History of Analytic Philosophy, Comparative Philosophy, History of Ideas, and 9 morePhenomenology, Continental Philosophy, Jean Wahl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Georges Bataille, Merleau-Ponty, Realism vs Anti-Realism, Continental (vs.) Analytical Philosophy, and A. J. Ayer
In his recent article, titled ‘Royaumont Revisited’, Overgaard challenges Dummett's view that one needs to go as far back as the late nineteenth century in order to discover examples of genuine dialogue between ‘analytic’ and... more
In his recent article, titled ‘Royaumont Revisited’, Overgaard challenges Dummett's view that one needs to go as far back as the late nineteenth century in order to discover examples of genuine dialogue between ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ philosophy. Instead, Overgaard argues that in the 1958 Royaumont colloquium, generally judged as a failed attempt at communication between the two camps, one can find some elements which may be utilized towards re-establishing a dialogue between these two sides. Yet, emphasising this image of Royaumont as a kind of battleground between ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ philosophy obscures the plurality of philosophical approaches involved. Royaumont was the meeting point of more than two philosophical traditions, as can be shown by the divergent interests of its participants. Thus, though the potential for rapprochement between Oxford ‘linguistic philosophy’ and a certain strand of phenomenological thought may indeed be found among the discussions that took place during the colloquium, one should keep in mind that such rapprochement took place in the context of a meeting between, among others: continental ‘analytics’, Anglophone non-‘analytics’, French historians of philosophy, ‘analytic’ opponents of Oxford philosophy, Franciscan phenomenologists, and Oxonians who called their work ‘phenomenology’.
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Intellectual History, Metaphysics, Aesthetics, History of Analytic Philosophy, Martin Heidegger, and 10 moreModernist Architecture (Architectural Modernism), Wittgenstein, Vienna Circle, Modernism, Architecture and Phenomenology, Rudolf Carnap, Bauhaus, Adolf Loos, Otto Neurath, and Continental Philosophy and Aesthetics
Research Interests:
In 1911, Bergson visited Britain for a number of lectures which led to his increasing popularity. Russell personally encountered Bergson during his lecture at University College London on 28 October, and on 30 October Bergson attended one... more
In 1911, Bergson visited Britain for a number of lectures which led to his increasing popularity. Russell personally encountered Bergson during his lecture at University College London on 28 October, and on 30 October Bergson attended one of Russell’s lectures. Russell went on to write a number of critical articles on Bergson, contributing to the hundreds of publications on Bergson which ensued following these lectures.
Russell’s critical writings have been seen as part of a history of controversies between so-called ‘Continental’ and ‘Analytic’ philosophers in the twentieth century. Yet Russell’s engagement with Bergson’s thought comes as a response to a particular British form of Bergsonism and is involved with the wider phenomenon of the British import of Bergsonism (by figures connected in different ways to Russell, such as Hulme, Wildon Carr or Eliot). Though this may challenge the view of Russell and Bergson as enacting an early version of the ‘Analytic’-‘Continental’ divide, there are however some particular characterisations of Bergson by Russell which contribute to the subsequent formation of the ‘rotten scene’ (Glendinning 2006: 69) of the divide in the second half of the twentieth century.
Russell’s critical writings have been seen as part of a history of controversies between so-called ‘Continental’ and ‘Analytic’ philosophers in the twentieth century. Yet Russell’s engagement with Bergson’s thought comes as a response to a particular British form of Bergsonism and is involved with the wider phenomenon of the British import of Bergsonism (by figures connected in different ways to Russell, such as Hulme, Wildon Carr or Eliot). Though this may challenge the view of Russell and Bergson as enacting an early version of the ‘Analytic’-‘Continental’ divide, there are however some particular characterisations of Bergson by Russell which contribute to the subsequent formation of the ‘rotten scene’ (Glendinning 2006: 69) of the divide in the second half of the twentieth century.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, there emerged two controversies related to the responsibility of philosophical ideas for the rise of German militarism. The first, mainly journalistic, controversy concerned the influence... more
With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, there emerged two controversies related to the responsibility of philosophical ideas for the rise of German militarism. The first, mainly journalistic, controversy concerned the influence that Nietzsche’s ideas may have had on what British propagandists portrayed as the ruthlessly amoral German foreign policy. This soon gave way to a second controversy, waged primarily among academics, concerning the purportedly vicious political outcomes of German Idealism, from Kant through to Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. During the autumn of 1914, and at the cusp between the two controversies, Moritz Schlick was to deliver a lecture series on Nietzsche’s life and work at the University of Rostock. Responding to both debates, Schlick penned an introduction in which he sought to defend philosophy against all those who would embroil it in warfare. Schlick offers a series of arguments defending Nietzsche against his accusers. He also argues that, though their contributions to the History of Philosophy often amounted to no more than ‘beautiful nonsense’, the German Idealists’ philosophical views cannot be held responsible for the rise of German nationalism. Finally, Schlick mounts a general defense of the search for truth, both in philosophy and in Wissenschaft, as a type of activity which presupposes peace. Though Schlick’s metaphilosophical views change, as this paper shows, he remains constant both in his favourable appraisal of Nietzsche, as well as his separation between politics on the one hand, and both philosophy and Wissenschaft on the other hand.
Research Interests:
During the late 1930s, the failed attempt at collaboration between the Frankfurt School and the Vienna Circle culminated in Horkheimer's 1937 paper 'The Latest Attack on Metaphysics'. Horkheimer ([1937] 1972), relying on a caricature of... more
During the late 1930s, the failed attempt at collaboration between the Frankfurt School and the Vienna Circle culminated in Horkheimer's 1937 paper 'The Latest Attack on Metaphysics'. Horkheimer ([1937] 1972), relying on a caricature of positivism as espousing an uncritical myth of the given, drew far-reaching conclusions concerning positivism's conservative prohibition of the radical questioning of appearances. Horkheimer (1940) later applied some of these criticisms to Dilthey's conception of Verstehen, while presenting Logical Empiricism as dismissing Dilthey's proposals nothing more than poetry. By examining Neurath's unpublished reply to Horkheimer, and drawing on Uebel's (2019) account of Logical Empiricism's stance towards Verstehen, this chapter will attempt to dispel Horkheimer's caricature. I will highlight a parallel between Neurath's attitude towards (i) claims about Verstehen in social science and (ii) Horkheimer's proposals for the use of Vernunft by a 'supra-scientific' Critical Theory. Neurath argues that once Horkheimer's objections to 'positivism' are reformulated in non-metaphysical terms, they point towards a genuine problem concerning science's relation to social praxis. For Neurath, the problem can be addressed from within (rather than, as Horkheimer would have it, from above) empirically-minded investigations in the history and sociology of science.
Research Interests:
This chapter examines Bertrand Russell’s various confrontations with Bergson’s work. Russell’s meetings with Bergson during 1911 would be followed in 1912 by the publication of Russell’s earliest polemical pieces. His 1912 review of... more
This chapter examines Bertrand Russell’s various confrontations with Bergson’s work. Russell’s meetings with Bergson during 1911 would be followed in 1912 by the publication of Russell’s earliest polemical pieces. His 1912 review of Bergson’s Laughter ridicules the effort to develop a philosophical account of humour on the basis of some formula. In his 1912 “The Philosophy of Bergson”, Russell develops a series of objections against Bergson’s accounts of number, space, and duration. Bergson’s position is defended against Russell’s onslaught by H. W. Carr (1913) and Karin Costelloe-Stephen (1914), though Russell only replies to the former. By contrast to Bergson’s silence in the face of Russell’s criticisms, Russell would continue responding to Bergson’s views in multiple works during the 1910s and 1920s. As this chapter shows, Russell not only develops further objections against specific theses upheld by Bergson, but also comments upon the political implications of Bergson’s philosophy, as well as its positioning within the history of French philosophy.
Research Interests:
A. J. Ayer's Language, Truth, and Logic had been responsible for introducing the Vienna Circle's ideas, developed within a Germanophone framework, to an Anglophone readership. Inevitably, this migration from one context to another... more
A. J. Ayer's Language, Truth, and Logic had been responsible for introducing the Vienna Circle's ideas, developed within a Germanophone framework, to an Anglophone readership. Inevitably, this migration from one context to another resulted in the alteration of some of the concepts being transmitted. Such alterations have served to facilitate a number of false impressions of Logical Empiricism from which recent scholarship still tries to recover. In this paper, I will attempt to point to the ways in which LTL has helped to foster the various mistaken stereotypes about Logical Empiricism which were combined into the received view. I will begin by examining Ayer's all too brief presentation of an Anglocentric lineage for his ideas. This lineage, as we shall see, simply omits the major 19 th century Germanophone influences on the rise of analytic philosophy. The Germanophone ideas he presents are selectively introduced into an Anglophone context, and directed towards various concerns that arose within that context. I will focus on the differences between Carnap's version of the overcoming of metaphysics, and Ayer's reconfiguration into what he calls the elimination of metaphysics. Having discussed the above, I will very briefly outline the consequences that Ayer's radicalisation of the Vienna Circle's doctrines had on the subsequent Anglophone reception of Logical Empiricism.
Research Interests:
A Critical Notice of: Across the Great Divide: Between Analytic and Continental Political Theory, by Jeremy Arnold, Stanford University Press, 2020, 232 pp., $29.52 (paperback), ISBN 9781503612150
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
For the Macat library.
Research Interests: Kant, Film Studies, Film Theory, Marxism, Jean-Luc Nancy, and 40 morePhilosophy of Film, Film-Philosophy, Gilles Deleuze, Friedrich Nietzsche, Slavoj Žižek, Martin Heidegger, Felix Guattari, Socrates, Augustine, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Film History, Helene Cixous, Pierre Bourdieu, Wittgenstein, Simone de Beauvoir, Julia Kristeva, Kierkegaard, Gianni Vattimo, Jean Paul Sartre, Bertrand Russell, Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali (d. 1111), Giordano Bruno, Confucianism, Hannah Arendt, Jean Baudrillard, Iris Murdoch, Karl Marx, Albert Camus, Film, Ordinary Language Philosophy, Noam Chomsky, Arthur Danto, Philippe Sollers, Derek Jarman, Gayatri Spivak, Robert Solomon, Hypatia, Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt, and Roberto Rossellini
Workshop presentation for "Mind the Gap: (In)famous Oppositions in the History of Philosophy", organised by the Dutch Research School of Philosophy & University of Utrecht. Held at Nunspeet, 13 May 2017.... more
Workshop presentation for "Mind the Gap: (In)famous Oppositions in the History of Philosophy", organised by the Dutch Research School of Philosophy & University of Utrecht.
Held at Nunspeet, 13 May 2017.
http://www.ozsw.nl/activity/mind-the-gap-infamous-oppositions-in-the-history-of-philosophy/
(Note: I have uploaded this here after the students at the workshop requested a copy. Apologies for any typos, and for incomplete citations.)
Held at Nunspeet, 13 May 2017.
http://www.ozsw.nl/activity/mind-the-gap-infamous-oppositions-in-the-history-of-philosophy/
(Note: I have uploaded this here after the students at the workshop requested a copy. Apologies for any typos, and for incomplete citations.)
Research Interests:
Recordings from a series of seminars I gave, with Christos Hadjioannou, about Phenomenology and the Arts. Held at Point Centre for Contemporary Art, Cyprus, January-June 2016.